>
> Can I ask why you want to be free of proprietary software? I know you're
> not the only one who feels this way...
>
> Does it relate to moral opinions about selling software? Is it wanting
> to save money? I can't say I understand this sentiment completely. I can
> understand open protocols and formats, but everything else is a little
> unclear to me...
To the pedantic, there is a difference between free software and open
source software. The former is most throughly defined by the Free
Software Foundation (the non-technical side of GNU). See here:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Wikipedia has a decent article on open source which includes the 10 part
definition as defined by the Open Source Initiative and refers to the
reality that although some want to separate the two types with laser
precision, there really is very little difference between the two
philsophies as relates to the products or development methods.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Definition
Richard Stallman, the head of the FSF, is attacked often for his radical
statements and very black-and-white outlook on things, but regardless of
one's opinions of the man, he has done a lot to promote freedom from not
just vendor lock-in, but privacy violations happening at the corporate
and even governtment levels. And while a person may not directly relate
a software model to privacy, they often do intertwine. For more on that,
I would recommended taking a look at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
--
Jeff
My other computer is an abacus.
_______________________________________________
BLUG mailing list
BLUG@linuxfan.com
http://mailman.cs.indiana.edu/mailman/listinfo/blug
